The New York Islanders and San Jose Sharks come into tonight’s matchup carrying the same kind of baggage: losses. The Islanders have dropped three in a row as they begin their California road trip, while the Sharks have stumbled through five straight defeats and seven losses in their last eight games.
That sets the stage for a night where one side finally has to break through. And if this one is going to turn, the spotlight figures to land on a few key names.
Macklin Celebrini has been impossible to ignore lately, and the Sharks have leaned on him hard. Ryan Warsofsky gave him more than 28 minutes in the team’s last game against the Dallas Stars, the first time he’s ever reached that mark in his career.
That workload comes with some concern, but it also speaks to how necessary he’s become. Celebrini is riding a three-game point streak, and he piled up three assists against Dallas.
On the other side, Bo Horvat has made a habit of producing against San Jose no matter where he’s played. That was true with the Vancouver Canucks, and it’s been true with the Islanders too.
The 31-year-old center has 33 points in 39 career games against the Sharks. He also picked up two points in New York’s last game against the New Jersey Devils and is currently scoring at a point-per-game pace to open the season.
Victor Eklund brings a different kind of intrigue into this one. The 20-year-old winger is making his first trip to the SAP Center, and with his brother William Eklund formerly a Sharks forward, this would have looked like a much bigger family spotlight in another version of events.
Victor Eklund has started his rookie season well, with five goals and eight points in his first 16 games. He enters tonight on a two-game goal streak.
Kiefer Sherwood is also among the players to watch in this matchup.
In Other News...
Sharks Lineup Suddenly Gets More Complicated With Veteran Set To Return
The Sharks forward group is getting a familiar veteran back just as the roster starts to tighten up again. San Jose assigned Filip Bystedt to the Barracuda in the AHL, a move that comes with Alexander Wennberg set to rejoin the lineup after a stint on injured reserve. Wennberg has been out with an upper-body injury, and his return gives the Sharks another experienced option down the middle as they try to settle their rotation.
For Bystedt, the assignment sends him back to the Barracuda after his first taste of NHL action with San Jose. The 2023 first-rounder made his debut with the Sharks and appeared in five games, but he heads back to the minors looking for more reps and a chance to keep developing. With Wennberg back in the mix, the Sharks now have a little less room for experimentation and a little more pressure to sort out the best combination up front. [Read more 🡒]
Sharks Early Slide Is Raising A Bigger Internal Concern
The Sharks opened the season with a couple of overtime wins, but the early optimism has given way to a rough stretch that now includes a five-game losing streak. Along the way, the team has been trying to sort through the usual growing pains of a young roster while also dealing with the kind of mistakes that can snowball when confidence starts to slip.
More concerning for San Jose is that the skid has already led to a players-only meeting, a sign the issues may go beyond what shows up on the ice. Ryan Warsofsky has continued to talk about development and the need for young players to keep learning through it, but the conversation around the club has widened to include questions about his ice-time decisions and lineup choices as the Sharks search for a way to steady things. [Read more 🡒]
Sharks Youth Movement Now Faces A Bigger Test Than Promise
The Sharks youth movement still has plenty to like on the ice, with Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith continuing to show up on the scoresheet and give the rebuild some real shape. Even so, the broader picture has become harder to ignore, because the teams recent slide has exposed how much more San Jose needs than promising individual nights. Defensive consistency has been shaky, special teams have not provided enough of a lift, and the offense has not been able to turn flashes into the kind of sustained pressure that changes games.
For a club trying to grow through its young core, the next step is no longer just about development, it is about carrying those performances into actual results. Injuries have only made that task more complicated, thinning the margin for error and putting more pressure on the rest of the lineup to absorb difficult minutes. The talent is there to make this stretch matter for the right reasons, but the Sharks are now at the point where promise has to start looking a lot more like progress. [Read more 🡒]